


Only One Thing We Say to Death

by janjanfollower



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Major Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janjanfollower/pseuds/janjanfollower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What happened?" "You fuckin' <i>died</i>."</p><p>Who truly knows what happens when your soul leaves your body? Where are you when you aren't alive or dead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only One Thing We Say to Death

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has major spoilers for episode 44, so like. If you didn't see it please don't read this.
> 
> Sometimes when I'm writing things, I think 'I'm so sorry for the people that have to read this.' This isn't one of those times.

Vex's body is sore, and her head aches harder than her legs do as blood rushes in all the wrong places. She and Percy stand on top of the stone dais, both of them pilfering at the armor that clearly belongs to the Raven Queen in exhausted silence, reaping their spoils after a long and bloody battle.

Vax's absent-minded voice rings dimly through her head, watching him silently (in her memory of him) searching for traps, analyzing the nooks of doors and locks for slots and strings. Maybe her hand is just in the wrong place as she's searching the opened sarcophagus. She's new at checking traps; she might've watched Vax do it since they were young but it's much different between watching someone locate and disarm traps and doing it.

She never sees Percy flick his fingers on the rough leather hide, never sees the dust on the floor of the sarcophagus coalesce and slowly become a sludge before floating in the air; but she does see a black beast in the shape of her nightmare freeze her heart and for a half-moment she feels a cold pierce her chest and her body be thrust backwards, a force pushing the blood out of her body

 

* * *

 

and then she was nowhere.

and then she was everywhere.

and then she was in space, and then she was in air.

she was not breathing, but she did not need to. she did not need to feel her chest lift by itself.

_(she did not feel the cold in her heart anymore, she was still falling but was not)_

she heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing. she felt her eyes closed

_(did she even have eyes?)_

but she need not open them. there was no need. she was in one point and she was everything in existence.

there was a vibration of death, of despair, but these words had no meaning behind them; they merely blended with the background of her. the information arrived and passed through her with nothing to it.

she was floating through water, but felt no dampness on her skin

_(where was her skin? she was a bundle of nerves, a collection of thoughts, a streaming consciousness; a constant and a variable all at once.)_

noise was muddled, sloggy and drunk, and it made her lack of body cringe in an emotional way, for there was nothing to move, no muscle to tense.

she had nothing to question, for this was all there was. she was reality, she was fabrication. to question this would be to question all, and she knew all, and she knew nothing. and this she also knew.

she felt a pressure at the top of her not-body, a warmth that ran chills through her nerves, one that brought her awareness to fog further.

_(a crying, angry voice of a half-elf she did not know that made her not-skin sweat with chill she could not feel)_

she felt a burning hot at her mid-area, a scalding force that burned her nerves

_(a hot palm resting on her chest, covered in onyx feathers)_

the noise that mugged the space was torn apart, a clear voice that split her in half with its diamond clarity. a woman's voice, time-worn and young, wise and ignorant, power thrumming in the electricity of the nonexistent air.

when she did not look up, she saw a woman's naked frame hidden by black feathers that glowed green and violet against the lack of light. flying feathers glided with the woman, lying always within her shadow, as her hair moved in the current that did not exist and disintegrated into raven feathers. it was only the woman's eyes that stayed a bright sun light that denied her fully-shadowed appearance.

_Your time has yet to come, Vex'ahlia._

  
and she falls.

 

* * *

 

She falls hard.

The stone of the floor hits against her spine hard, and she's coughing for a reason she doesn't know. It feels like she's been kicked in the chest and her body is forcing itself to relearn how to breathe.

When Vex is able to get her breath back, she opens her eyes and blinks back the fog in her vision. She sees how Vax, Zahra, Kashaw, and Percy all hover around her, all in various states of worry. What strikes Vex hardest, truly kicks her heart into the far side of her ribcage, is Vax. When was the last time she saw him cry?

She pushes herself to sit up, Zahra's fine hands giving her support should she fall. Past Kashaw's grimace and falling head, his scowl deeper in the lines of his face than she'd ever seen, she can see Grog, Scanlan, Kima, and Keyleth stand in a line, far away from the five of them, all releasing a caught breath of air. Keyleth nearly falls to her knees, holding her chest and doubled over as she looks at the other three, all of them looking as the ones surrounding her do.

Vex whips her head back to Zahra, her red face somber and looking down as her hands move to untie the cloak resting on her shoulders. They all look like someone died, and Vex can't help but feel how her body is much too cold than what should feel normal.

"What happened?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
